Lighting Candles: Dealing with Darkness and Grief

One of my lifelong teachers, Professor Arthur Seamans, aka “Doc,” has an arsenal of aphorisms—one-liners, sayings, tidbits of wisdom he’s collected from well-known quotes, mythologies, verses, and, of course, poetry. Since I’ve been lucky enough to spend lots of time in his presence, I’ve been able to gather these aphorisms, to memorize them, to keep them for safe keeping until I needed them. Over the past week, two of Doc’s sayings helped me understand something that felt completely overwhelming at first.

The first quote comes from William Wordsworth, a Romantic poet who became England’s poet laureate in 1843. During my senior year of undergraduate studies, Doc conducted an independent study for me in Romantic English Literature, and Wordsworth’s “Lines Written in Early Spring” was on the syllabus. Here are two lines that stuck with me:

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man. (lines 7-8)

A week ago, as I sat down to eat dinner, a song came on my Pandora station that has always tugged at my heartstrings: the theme from the film Schindler’s List. I don’t know what came over me, but I lost it. I wept. Reflecting back to the film, which is always a difficult one to watch, and to the atrocities it displays from World War II, I was struck by the cruelty, by the hatred, by the darkness within humanity. Thinking of the Holocaust and what we are capable of doing to one another, I allowed Wordsworth’s lines to nurse my grieving heart.

Though the experience—the music playing and its ability to transport me to a specific time in history—was powerful, indeed, I knew something else was going on. I knew that my despair had been building up.

For the last two weeks, I’ve read a series of books on a subject that is both terribly appalling and utterly shocking, but to stay on task, I’ll just mention the two books that stand out most and that are relevant to this post (of course I’ll explain these books more in depth at the end of the year in my annual “Must-Reads” blog post, but for now, a snapshot will have to do).

The first book is Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. In it, Kolbert offers up as evidence a survey of scientific studies, ranging from sociology to anthropology to biology to ecology, to prove that the earth is on the verge of our sixth mass extinction (note, a mass extinction qualifies as a wipe-out of at least 50% of all species; the last time this happened was 66 million years ago, and the other four occurred before that over the span of Earth’s 4.5 billion years of life). As if that news wasn’t disturbing enough, she names the cause—humans. Our mistreatment of nature will lead to our demise, to the extinction of our species.

To corroborate and really breakdown the how and why of this sixth extinction is Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. In this book, Klein fiercely explains how capitalism (and all its accouterments—greed, materialism, consumerism, colonialism, industrialization, exploitation, power) is responsible for the changes in our climate, changes that will cause our sixth extinction if we don’t do something drastic now. Humanity’s obsession with these things has seemingly disconnected us from all that is sacred—human life, the natural environment, and morality. Klein shows us the error of our ways, not backing down for a moment in holding up the mirror to our deeply flawed ideologies—ideologies that have turned us against ourselves because their truths are too inconvenient to our current way of life.

And so, as I grieved over the Holocaust and over one of humanity’s darkest hours, the truths presented in these books accompanied that grief. Our mistreatment of one another and our Earth exceeds my comprehension entirely.

Much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of…

But then, Zachariah came home. We hugged, we sat in communion together over a meal (mine being reheated), we shared news from our days, and we feasted and delighted in one another’s company. How quickly I was reminded of the good in the world. How quickly I felt the power of love (the big-L love—the love that permeates all existence—and though little-l love—romantic love—offers up its own beauty, that’s not quite what I mean here). How quickly the veil of darkness lifted, and I could see clearly again.

And then another of Doc’s gems came to me:

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

This one phrase has lifted me out of many emotionally overwhelming situations, has helped me make sense of the most trying times and circumstances. Once it became part of me, everything else just clicked, meaning, my entire cosmology fell into place, though it took me some time to understand that cosmology fully. When I took this phrase in, I made a silent vow to myself: I will strive to be a person who lights a candle. Though I may fall into despair when facing hard times, this phrase reminds not to dwell there for long, since cursing the darkness will never do any good.

I wanted to write up this blog post the very next day, on Thursday. But time ran away from me, and in my procrastination, the world was tormented by terrorism, by the darkness that exists in humanity. So now seems as important a time as any to pass along the wisdom I’ve been blessed with from Doc, wisdom that has me choose against cursing the darkness and instead opting for prayer—prayer for the world, for the Earth, and for humanity. Even though Wordsworth’s sentiments may someday resonate again, I trust in my ability to help raise our collective consciousness, to uplift others toward love, and to light my candle.